


'shine

by killerweasel



Series: Up Close [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 03:29:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1590035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killerweasel/pseuds/killerweasel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"First of all, I'm about to tell you things you are probably not going to want to hear. Second, you might punch me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	'shine

Title: 'shine  
Fandom: _Pacific Rim_  
Characters: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, Raleigh Becket  
Word Count: 2,070  
Rating: R  
A/N: AU after the events of _Pacific Rim_  
Warnings: n/a  
A/N: This is for [knightphoenix2](http://archiveofourown.org/users/knightphoenix2/pseuds/knightphoenix2)  
Summary: "First of all, I'm about to tell you things you are probably not going to want to hear. Second, you might punch me."

Newt looked up when there was a knock at his door. He blinked in surprise when he saw Raleigh. "Hey. What brings you to my room?"

"Hermann thought we should talk about things." Raleigh lingered in the doorway until Newt waved him in. "He said you'd know what he was referring to."

"I can't do this sober and I hate drinking alone." Newt dropped down on the floor next to his bed. He rummaged around under it for a moment, tossed a plush Meathead and a plastic Godzilla out of the way. "Aha! I'll warn you, this stuff will knock you on your ass if you aren't careful. If everything starts getting fuzzy, you need to stop drinking it, okay? I don't want you going blind."

Raleigh stared at the jar of clear liquid Newt was holding. "Where did you get moonshine?"

Newt sat down on the bed, clutching the jar to his chest. "I may have built a still in the middle of all the crap in the lab. Said still no longer exists, if it existed it all." He winked at Raleigh. "I went through a stretch where I had no Kaiju parts to dissect and had to keep myself entertained, otherwise I would have drove Hermann completely mad. I built a bunch of gadgets and gizmos and the still."

He snickered to himself when he remembered how absolutely furious Hermann had been when he'd discovered exactly what Newt had been up to. He'd never seen Hermann's face turn so many shades of red and purple before, not even when he'd filled Hermann's desk drawer with a chunk of Kaiju intestine. Newt had cut the alcohol's strength in half with water and it still kicked like a mule.

"Are you sure this is the best way for us to have a chat?" Raleigh kicked his boots off before he sat on Newt's bed. He rested his back against the wall. "We could just talk like rational people."

Newt made a rude noise. "First of all, I'm about to tell you things you are probably not going to want to hear. Second, you might punch me. I'd like to be nice and wasted if that happens. And third... I was saving this final jar for an unspecified reason and I think it's time to crack it open."

"Hand it over." Raleigh took the jar from Newt. He unscrewed the lid slowly. "You sure this stuff is safe?"

"Just don't overdo it and you should be fine."

Bringing the jar to his lips, Raleigh took a couple cautious swallows. The alcohol burned a path down his throat, making him cough. Newt rescued the jar from his hands before anything spilled on the blanket.

"That crap is horrible." Raleigh wiped at his eyes. "Now, give it back."

After Newt had a few gulps, he handed it over. "Okay, I need to show you this before we get started." When Newt started to undo his pants, Raleigh's eyebrows shot up. "Dude, I have to show you a tattoo and I can't roll my pants up high enough. I'm not being weird, I swear."

Newt tossed his pants onto the floor. He had another drink from the jar and then rolled over onto his stomach. "Back of my left leg, Raleigh. I need you to lean in really close and look at Knifehead's outline."

Raleigh set the jar down on the end table, he was already feeling more than a little tipsy and didn't want to make a mess, and then eased his body down on the mattress. He stared at Newt's leg. "Oh." He leaned in closer, tracing along the side of Knifehead's neck. "You've got Yancy's name on here."

"I know people hate the tattoos and I do get that. The Kaiju were awesome and like nothing we'd ever seen before. At the same time, they are responsible for the deaths of a ton of people, including the Rangers who went up against them." Newt rested his chin on his arms. "I have the name of the Kaiju, the date they came out of the Breach, what Jaegers they fought, and the name of the Rangers who lost their lives bringing them down in the outlines of all my tattoos."

Raleigh looked at the rest of Newt's exposed ink. He spotted quite a few familiar names. "Most people never get close enough to see the details, do they?"

Newt sat up. "Do you blame them? I've basically got an entire suit of ink made up of alien creatures who tried to end the world as we know it. You have no idea how many times I got my ass kicked over these." He shrugged. "I tend to keep them covered outside of the Shatterdome."

"You seriously have a whole suit?"

"You want to see?" Raleigh nodded. "I'm not done yet. I have an appointment to get the final Kaiju done next week." Newt tugged his t-shirt off. He tossed it on the floor next to his pants. "Ta-da."

"While I'm not exactly a fan of the subject matter, I gotta say, that's impressive." Raleigh watched Newt turn in a circle on the bed. He could see the blank spots waiting to be filled in. "Are you drunk enough to have the big conversation now?"

"I guess. If I have any more 'shine, I'm going to start singing Tom Jones songs." Newt sighed, grabbed his pillow, and stuck it between his head and the wall. "What is it you wanted to know?"

Raleigh sat up. He took a deep breath before speaking. "Everything changed with Knifehead. Do you know why?"

"Eh... You have to take what I'm about to say with a huge grain of salt, okay? I can't fully prove any of this and most of it is just speculation on my part." He chewed on his thumbnail. "The Kaiju were cloned. The cloning technology the Precursors use is so beyond anything we're capable of. They can make complex, thinking creatures in a very short period time. Each creature they create contains the memories of the ones that came before it. Do you understand what that means?"

The color drained from Raleigh's face. "That's why they were getting better at taking us down. They knew from previous battles what the Jaegers could do."

"Exactly." He debated on asking Raleigh to pass him the jar again. "Personally, I think all the Kaiju before Knifehead were sent mainly to discover exactly what we had to use against them. The Kaiju got larger, faster, and smarter as time went on. They modified them for a reason. That pulse generator Leatherback had was a thing of genius. It was specifically created to knock out all the remaining Jaegers they knew about. And Otachi... well, I'm pretty sure they made her to hunt for me. She didn't fight for long before she took off toward the city. She had a mission."

Newt rubbed his temple. "I have this theory, which Hermann has told me is 'complete poppycock', that the Precursors get bored. They've been around for a very long time and devastating worlds could be a form of entertainment. Because if they had really wanted to wipe us out, they probably could have done it in a much shorter period of time. Maybe they don't have people fight back very often and wanted to see where it was going. From what I saw the first time I drifted, they sent Kaiju through back when dinosaurs walked the Earth. They waited millions of years before they came back. Or maybe it wasn't so long for them. It could have been months. I have no idea."

He motioned for the jar. Raleigh gave him a look, but handed it over. Newt sipped the contents. "They created creatures which not only were huge and powerful, but if the creature died, the body would break down very rapidly, ruining just about everything it came into contact with. Everything about the Kaiju scream destruction. It will be decades, maybe even centuries before the areas where the Kaiju attacked can support life properly again, and that's not even counting the areas where we used nuclear bombs. The Pacific is trashed. I doubt the fish will be safe for a long time. We don't have any idea what the long-lasted effects are going to be. On top of that, the world is pretty bad shape financially. Sure, we won the war, but I think it is going to be a while before things get close to 'normal' again."

"You're just a ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Raleigh snorted. "I think you've had enough for both of us." He grabbed the jar away from Newt, screwed the lid on tightly, and set it on the table.

"It's been two weeks since my second Drift. I have nightmares." Newt curled his hand in the blanket. "Except I know they aren't dreams. They're Kaiju memories. I see the attacks through their eyes, experience it from their end." He decided not to mention how he'd woke up screaming every night for the last week and a half or how it took Hermann almost ten minutes to get him calmed back down again. Newt never bothered going back to sleep after that.

"There was a fishing boat near where Knifehead was surfacing. Smaller one, maybe had five or six people on it." Newt sees Raleigh go still, but he can't stop talking. "It surfaced there because it knew you would put the lives of others before yourselves. By that point, they knew something was inside of the metal creatures they'd been fighting. That's why it went for the con-pod. They don't care about survival, they don't care about being injured. They have been programmed to destroy, to kill, to ruin, and that's what they do until their last breath runs out. Doesn't matter if they're missing limbs, or they're bleeding so heavily it feels like they're bathing in their own blood. Failure is not an option."

"It tore Yancy right out of the con-pod." Raleigh's hands are shaking slightly. "And then it just kept chewing and biting and the sound of bone on metal are so much louder than you think they would be. I felt Yancy die. We were still connected."

"The damage from the plasma canon tore its insides to shreds and it couldn't stop." Newt brought his knees up, curling his arms around it. "They modeled it off a goblin shark, that's why the mouth looked like it did. It was still biting when you blew its face off." He now knew what it felt like to be killed by a plasma canon.

"I honestly don't remember killing it. Everything hurt so much and even after I felt him die, it was like Yancy was still there." He rubs a hand over his face. "I still don't know how I made it to shore. I shouldn't have been able to do that by myself."

"Did the fishermen survive?"

"What?" Raleigh blinks. "Yeah, they did. They came to the memorial service we had, told me how sorry they were. All I could think was if we hadn't helped them, Yancy might still be alive."

They went quiet for a few minutes, the silence around them slowly growing increasingly awkward. Newt cleared his throat. "Hermann asked me if I thought they would come back. I've got a better connection to the Hivemind memories than he does. Going by what you described when they debriefed you, I think what you saw was only part of the Precursor's world. The explosion would have done some major damage, but I doubt it wiped them all out. If they feel like we're worth bothering with, they'll be back. If it was me, I wouldn't come through right away. I'd wait a few decades until everyone thinks they're safe and then open a new Breach."

Raleigh sighed. "Mind if I stay here for a bit? I don't really want to be alone right now."

"Hrm?" Newt closed his eyes. "Sure, dude. Fine by me. Hey, Raleigh? Do you know any Tom Jones songs?"

The corners of Raleigh's mouth twitched. "Want some whiskey in your water? Sugar in your tea?"

"What's all these crazy questions they are all asking me?"

They were singing 'What's New Pussycat?' at the top of their lungs when Hermann came to check on Newt ten minutes later.


End file.
